Newsreader Jane: I had a mastectomy in cancer battle
BBC newsreader Jane Hill has revealed she had a mastectomy last year after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She opted not to have reconstructive surgery following the operation because she did not want to be given anaesthetic or go under the knife.
Miss Hill, 50, who regularly appears on the BBC News Channel, disappeared from screens in November after she was diagnosed with the illness – but didn’t explain her absence until May.
She said she didn’t want to ‘start talking about it on social media’ in case ‘there was a hiccup’ in her treatment, and added that she felt it ‘wasn’t right’ for her to make public updates on her progress.
‘I left work at the end of November. You just don’t know how it’s going to go. You hope the operation is going to go well,’ she told ITV’s Lorraine yesterday. ‘My surgeon was amazing. On the day of my diagnosis what she made me do was walk away thinking about all the positives in my case.’ She added: ‘I was super lucky.’
The newsreader had a mastectomy in November but decided against reconstructive surgery. She said of her decision: ‘It wasn’t right for me, a reconstruction requires multiple surgeries. I do have a massive great scar across my chest.’
The Sussex-born broadcaster, who lives in north London with her partner of ten years, Sara Shepherd, credited her good health with aiding her speedy recovery.
‘Return impossible without the NHS’
‘Having lived a healthy lifestyle helped with my recovery,’ she said. ‘I’m a regular gym-goer and I definitely realised with hindsight it has helped my recovery. Eating broccoli for 25 years has helped.’
Miss Hill said her cancer diagnosis came at the same time her partner’s mother learned that she had the disease – doubling the stress on their family. ‘Her [Sara’s] mum was also diagnosed with cancer in the same month I was, so there was a lot of dark humour in our house.’ She previously told how she struggled with a lack of lesbian role models when she was growing up, because being gay ‘wasn’t part of the conversation’.
Miss Hill returned to work at the end of May and informed fans that she had been recovering in a series of tweets.
She wrote: ‘Overwhelmed by so many lovely back-to-work messages. I just want to say that my return wouldn’t have been possible without our NHS.’
She thanked the ‘numerous’ NHS staff who had ‘spotted my breast cancer, treated it, and continue to look after me’.